Photos 5.0 cannot duplicate certain photos

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Level 1

8 points

Photos 5.0 cannot duplicate certain photos

While many are trying to find a way to erase duplicate photos, my Macbook Pro has lost the ability to duplicate "certain" photos on demand. I have tried Command+D, I have tried the menu, but no good. While some photos are duplicated, other cannot be. I have tired to find a common characteristics between the ones that cannot be duplicated; does not matter if edited, or has face name, or location, or from a certain camera, the issue seems random, since photos with similar metadata can either be duplicated or not.

Thank you in advance:

MBP 2020 on Catalina, Photos 5.0

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 24, 2021 2:52 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Russ New Boy

Level 4

1,150 points

Apr 25, 2021 12:12 PM in response to berkerm

I had the same issue and you are right, there is no rhyme or reason as to why certain photos cannot be duplicated - doesn't seem to matter if they are new or old or have been edited.

However, I have found a workaround that worked for me. If you reopen the photo and make a small edit, such as a crop and then exit the photo, a new edited version is then saved and you should be able to create a duplicate. This worked for me on all photos that couldn't be duplicated.

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Answer 2

berkerm Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 26, 2021 11:51 AM in response to Russ New Boy

Simply enough, it worked! Thank you very much. Apple keeps amazing me with the idioticy of its problems, and naive solutions to them :(

All thumbs up!

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Answer 3

Apr 26, 2021 2:42 PM in response to berkerm

Am glad the solution worked for you. I found the workaround by accident. Photos is not good at giving error messages when things do not work properly

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Photos 5.0 cannot duplicate certain photos

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